Game Development Reference
In-Depth Information
The programmer
Programming, and videogame programming in particular, can be pretty similar to per-
forming magic, in some ways.
It has to do with crafting formulas learned from topics, a knowledge hard to grasp and
to understand, that allows those who are initiated to make anything they wish happen
on a computer or other device screen!
Out of the fantasy metaphor, the programmer is the guy who takes care of coding
things that happen in a videogame, the one who turns the math and logic behind it
into commands and functions and he is probably the most important professional in
a videogame team. You can have the most appealing design in the world, the best
graphics and sounds, but without someone coding this stuff, your game simply won't
exist!
In the early days of videogames, when games were nothing more than geometry per-
forming on the screen, the programmer was the team, as he took care of design and
artwork too.
As the complexity of games increased, programmers began to focus on just coding.
Over time, different kinds of programmers became necessary and now we have spe-
cialized roles, such as lead programmers, engine\physics programmers, AI program-
mers, and gameplay programmers.
A mobile team, on the other hand, will hardly have more than two people taking care
of coding. The team's game designer is more likely to help the programmer, if not with
hard coding stuff, at least with scripting game events.
The programmer's kit
The basic tools of a programmer falls into three main categories: coding languages,
Integrated Development software, and Version Control Systems.
Coding languages are a topic that could cover entire topics by itself. Packt already
offers several topics on the different coding languages and their characteristics; we
suggest referring to these topics for an in-depth analysis on the subject.
